THE TOWNS.
We have now arrived at that point of our enquiry at which it behoves us
to bestow our attention upon the origin and growth of towns among the
Anglosaxons; and to this end we shall find it expedient to carry our
researches to a still earlier period, and investigate, though in a
slight degree, the condition of their British and Roman predecessors in
this respect. At first sight it would seem natural to suppose that where
a race had long possessed the outward means and form of civilization,—a
race among whom great military and civil establishments had been
founded, who had clustered round provincial cities, the seats of a
powerful government, and whose ports and harbours had been the scenes of
active commerce,—there need be little question as to the origin of towns
and cities among those who conquered and dispossessed them. It might be
imagined that the later comers would have nothing more to do than seize
upon the seats from which they had expelled their predecessors, and
apply to their own uses the established instruments of convenience, of
wealth or safety. Further enquiry however proves that this induction
would be erroneous, and that the Saxons did not settle in the Roman
towns. The reason of this is not difficult to assign: a city is the
result of a system of cultivation, and it is of no use whatever to a
race whose system differs entirely from that of the race by whom it was
founded. The Curia and the temple, the theatre and thermae, house joined
to house and surrounded by a dense quadrangular wall, crowding into a
defined and narrow space the elements of civilization, are
unintelligible to him whose whole desire centres in the undisturbed
enjoyment of his éðel, and unlimited command of the mark. The buildings
of a centralized society are as little calculated for his use as their
habits and institutions: as well might it have been proposed to him to
substitute the jurisdiction of the _praetor urbanus_ for the national
tribunal of the folcmót. The spirit of life is totally different: as
different are all the social institutions, and all the details which
arise from these and tend to confirm and perpetuate them.
Nevertheless we cannot doubt that the existence of the British and Roman
cities did materially influence the mode and nature of the German
settlements; and without some slight sketch of the growth and
development of the former, we shall find it impossible to form a clear
notion of the conditions under which the Anglosaxon polity was formed.
If we may implicitly trust the report of Caesar, a British city in his
time differed widely from what we understand by that term. A spot
difficult of access from the trees which filled it, surrounded with a
rampart and a ditch, and which offered a refuge from the sudden
incursions of an enemy, could be dignified by the name of an _oppidum_,
and form the metropolis of Cassivelaunus[754]. Such also among the
Slavonians were the _vici_, encircled by an _abbatis_ of timber, or at
most a paling, proper to repel not only an unexpected attack, but even
capable of resisting for a time the onset of practised forces: such in
our own time have been found the stockades of the Burmese, and the Pah
of the New Zealander: and if our skilful engineers have experienced no
contemptible resistance, and the lives of many brave and disciplined men
have been sacrificed in their reduction, we may admit that even the
_oppida_ of Cassivelaunus, or Caratac or Galgacus, might, as fortresses,
have serious claims to the attention of a Roman commander. But such an
_oppidum_ is no town or city in the sense in which those words are
contemplated throughout this chapter: by a town I certainly intend a
place enclosed in some manner, and even fortified: but much more those
who dwell together in such a place, and the means by which they either
rule themselves, or are ruled. I mean a metaphysical as well as a
physical unit,—not exclusively what was a collection of dwellings or a
fortification, but a centre of trade and manufacture and civilization.
-----
Footnote 754:
Bell. Gall. v. 21. Caesar stormed it, and had therefore good means of
knowing what it was. His further information was probably derived from
his British ally Comius. Strabo gives a very similar account: πόλεις
δ’ αὐτων εἰσιν οἱ δρυμοι’· περιφράξαντες γὰρ δένδρεσι καταβεβλημένοις
εὐρυχωρῆ κύκλον καλυβοποιοῦνται, καὶ τὰ βοσκήματα κατκσταθμέυουσιν, οὐ
πρὸς πολὺν χρόνον. lib. iv.
-----
If the Romans found none such, at least they left them, in every part of
Britain. The record of their gradual and successive advance shows that,
partly with a politic view of securing their conquests, partly with the
necessary aim of conciliating their soldiery, they did establish
numerous _municipia_ and _coloniae_ here, as well as military stations
which in time became the nuclei of towns.
It is however scarcely possible that Caesar and Strabo can be strictly
accurate in their reports, or that there were from the first only such
towns in Britain as these authors have described. It is not consonant to
experience that a thickly peopled and peaceful country[755] should long
be without cities. A commercial people[756] always have some settled
stations for the collection and interchange of commodities, and fixed
establishments for the regulation of trade. Caesar himself tells us that
the buildings of the Britons were very numerous, and that they bore a
resemblance to those of the Gauls[757], whose cities were assuredly
considerable. Moreover a race so conversant with the management of
horses as to use armed chariots for artillery, are not likely to have
been without an extensive system of roads, and where there are roads,
towns will not long be wanting. Hence when, less than eighty years after
the return of the Romans to Britain, and scarcely forty after the
complete subjugation of the island by Agricola, Ptolemy tells us of at
least fifty-six cities in existence here[758], we may reasonably
conclude that they were not all due to the efforts of Roman
civilization.
Footnote 755:
“Hominum est infinita multitudo.” Bell. Gall. v. 12. Εἶναι δὲ καὶ
πολυάνθρωπον τὴν νῆσον ... βασιλεῖς τε καὶ δυνάστας πολλοὺς ἔχειν, καὶ
πρὸς ἀλλήλους κατὰ τὸ πλεῖστον εἰρηνικῶς διακεῖσθαι. Diodor. Sicul. v.
21.
Footnote 756:
Οὐενέτοι ... χρώμενοι τῷ ἐμπορίῳ. Strabo, lib. iv.
Footnote 757:
“Creberrima aedificia, fere Gallicis consimilia.” Bell. Gall. v. 12.
Footnote 758:
Ptolemy at the commencement of the second century (_i. e._ about A.D.
120) mentions the following πόλεις, which surely are _towns_:—
District. Towns. │ District. Towns.
Novantae Loucopibia. │Parisi Petuaria.
Rhetigonium. │Ordovices Mediolanium.
Selgovae Carbantorigum. │ Brannogenium.
Uxelum. │Cornabii Deuana.
Corda. │ Viroconium.
Trimontium. │Coritavi Lindum.
Damnii Colania. │ Rhage.
Vanduara. │Catyeuchlani Salenae.
Coria. │ Urolanium.
Alauna. │Simeni Venta.
Lindum. │Trinoantes Camudolanum.
Victoria. │Demetae Luentinium.
Otadeni Curia. │ Maridunum.
Bremenium. │Silures Bullaeum.
Vacomagi Banatia. │Dobuni Corinium.
Tameia. │Atrebatii Nalkua.
The Winged Camp. │Cantii Londinium.
Tuesis. │ Darvenum.
Venicontes Orrhea. │ Rhutupiae.
Texali Devana. │Rhegni Naeomagus.
Brigantes Epeiacum. │Belgae Ischalis.
Vinnovium. │ The Hot Springs.
Caturhactonium. │ Venta.
Calatum. │Durotriges Dunium.
Isurium. │Dumnonii Voliba.
Rhigodunum. │ Uxela.
Olicana. │ Tamare.
Eboracum. │ Isca.
Camunlodunum. │
-----
Caesar says indeed nothing of London, yet it is difficult to believe
that this was an unimportant place, even in his day. It was long the
principal town of the Cantii, whom the Roman general describes as the
most polished of the inhabitants of Britain; and as we know that there
was an active commercial intercourse between the eastern coast of
England and Gaul, it is at least probable that a station, upon a great
river at a safe yet easy distance from the sea, was not unknown to the
foreign merchants who traded to our shores[759]. One hundred and sixteen
years later it could be described as a city famous in a high degree for
the resort of merchants and for traffic[760]: but of these years one
hundred had been spent in peace and in the natural development of their
resources by the Britons, undisturbed by Roman ambition; and we have
therefore ample right to infer that from the very first Cair Lunden had
been a place of great commercial importance. The Romans on their return
found and kept it so, although they did not establish a colonia there.
The first place which received this title with all its corresponding
advantages was Camelodunum, probably the British Cair Colun, now
Colchester in Essex[761].
-----
Footnote 759:
It is clear that Caesar was not greatly harassed in his march towards
the ford of the Thames near Chertsey; and if, as is probable, his
advance disarmed the Cantii generally, or compelled the more warlike
of their body to retire upon the force of Cassivelaunus, concentrated
on the left bank of the river, we can understand what would otherwise
seem a very dangerous movement,—a march into Surrey, leaving London
unoccupied on the right flank. Thus it seems to me that the fact of
Caesar’s not noticing the city may be more readily explained by its
not lying within the scope of his manœuvres, than by its not
existing in his time. And indeed it is probable that just here some
portion of his memoirs has been lost: for in the nineteenth chapter of
the fifth book, he distinctly says: “Cassivelaunus, _ut supra
demonstravimus_, omni deposita spe contentionis,” etc.; but nothing
now remains in what we possess, to which these words can possibly be
referred. Caesar’s Commentaries were the private literary occupation
of the great soldier in peaceful times, and we cannot attribute this
contradiction in his finished work to carelessness.
Footnote 760:
“At Suetonius mira constantia medios inter hostes Londinium perrexit,
cognomento quidem coloniae non insigne, sed copia negotiatorum et
commeatuum maxime celebre.” Tacit. Ann. xiv. 33. “Not a colonia,”
seems to me equivalent to saying, a British city.—Twenty years after
the return of the Romans to Britain, _seventy thousand_ citizens and
allies perished during Boadicea’s rebellion in London, Verulam and
Colchester. (Ibid.)
Footnote 761:
This was long supposed to be Maldon, but it seems difficult to resist
Mannert’s reasoning in favour of Colchester. See Geograph. der Griech.
u. Röm. p. 157.
-----
As the settlement of the nations, and their reduction under a
centralizing system, followed the victories of the legions, municipia
and coloniae arose in every province, the seats of garrisons and the
residences of military and civil governors: while as civilization
extended, the Britons themselves, adopting the manners and following the
example of their masters, multiplied the number of towns upon all the
great lines of internal communication. It is difficult now to give from
Roman authorities only a complete list of these towns; many names which
we find in the _itineraria_ and similar documents, being merely
post-stations or points where subordinate provincial authorities were
located; but the names of fifty-six towns have been already quoted from
Ptolemy, and even tradition may be of some service to us on this
subject[762]. Nennius sums up with patriotic pride the names of
thirty-four principal cities which adorned Britain under his
forefathers, and many of these we can yet identify: amongst them are
London, Bristol, Canterbury, Colchester, Cirencester, Chichester,
Gloucester, Worcester, Wroxeter, York, Silchester, Lincoln, Leicester,
Doncaster, Caermarthen, Carnarvon, Winchester, Porchester, Grantchester,
Norwich, Carlisle, Chester, Caerleon on Usk, Manchester and
Dorchester[763]. To these from other sources we may add Sandwich, Dover,
Rochester, Nottingham, Exeter, Bath, Bedford, Aylesbury and St. Alban’s.
-----
Footnote 762:
In the third century Marcianus reckons, unfortunately without naming
them, fifty-nine celebrated cities in Britain: ἔχει δὲ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔθνη
λγ, πόλεις ἐπισήμους νθ, ποτάμους ἐπισήμους μ, ἀκρωτήρια ἐπίσημα ιδ,
χερσόνησον ἐπίσημον ἕνα, κόλπους ἐπισήμους ε, λίμενας ἐπισήμους γ.
Marcian. Heracleot. lib. i. Nor will this surprise us when we bear in
mind that about this period the Britons enjoyed such a reputation for
building as to find employment in Gaul. “Civitas Aeduorum ...
plurimos, quibus illae provinciae redundabant, accepit artifices,”
etc. Eumen. Const. Paneg. c. 21.
Footnote 763:
Henry of Huntingdon copies Nennius and aids in the identification.
Asser adds to the list Nottingham, in British Tinguobauc, and Cair
Wisc now Exeter. The Saxon Chronicle records Anderida, Bath, Bedford,
Leighton, Aylesbury, Bensington and Eynesham. Among the places
unquestionably Roman may be named Londinium, Verulamium, Colonia,
Glevum (Gloucester), Venta Belgarum (Winchester), Venta Icenorum
(Norwich), Venta Silurum (Cair Gwint), Durocornovium or Corinium
(Cirencester), Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester), Eboracum (York), Uxella
(Exeter), Aquæ Solis (Bath), Durnovaria (Dorchester), Regnum
(Chichester), Durocovernum (Canterbury), Uriconium (Wroxeter) and
Lindum (Lincoln).
-----
Whatever the origin of these towns may have been, it is easy to show
that many of them comprised a Roman population: the very walls by which
some of them are still surrounded, offer conclusive evidence of this;
while in the neighbourhood of others, coins and inscriptions, the ruins
of theatres, villas, baths, and other public or private buildings,
attest either the skill and luxury of the conquerors, or the aptness to
imitate of the conquered[764]. But a much more important question
arises; viz. how many of them were ruled freely, like the cities of the
old country, by a municipal body constituted in the ancient form: what
provision, in short, the Romans made or permitted for the education of
their British subjects in the manly career of citizenship and the
dignity of self-government[765].
-----
Footnote 764:
The walls of Chichester still offer an admirable example in very
perfect condition. The remains at Lincoln and Old Verulam enable us to
trace the ancient sites with precision, and in the immediate
neighbourhood of the latter town the foundations of a large theatre
are yet preserved. The plough still brings to light the remains of
Roman villas and the details of Roman cultivation throughout the
valley of the Severn. It is impossible here to enumerate all the
places where the discovery of coins, inscriptions, works of art and
utility or ruins of buildings attest a continued occupation of the
site and a peaceful settlement. Many archæological works, the result
of modern industry, may be beneficially consulted; and among these I
would call particular attention to the Map of Roman Yorkshire,
published by Mr. Newton, with the approbation of the Archæological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Footnote 765:
The following lines contain a very slight sketch of the municipal
institutions of a Roman city. It is not necessary to burthen the
reader’s attention with the deeper details of this special subject. A
general reference may be given to Savigny’s Geschichte des Römischen
Rechts, the leading authority on all such points.
-----
The constitution of a provincial city of the empire, in the days when
the republic still possessed virtue and principle, was of this
description, at all events from the period of the Social, Marsic or
Italian war, when the cities of Italy wrested isopolity, or at least
isotely, from Rome. The state consisted of the whole body of the
citizens, without distinction, having a general voice in the management
of their own internal affairs. The administrative functions however
resided in a privileged class of those citizens, commonly called
_Curiales_, _Decuriones_, _Ordo Decurionum_ (or sometimes _Ordo_ alone),
and occasionally _Senatus_. They were in fact to the whole body of the
citizens what the Senatus under the Emperors was to the citizens of
Rome[766], and their rights and privileges seem in general to have
varied very much as did those of the higher body. They were hereditary,
but, when occasion demanded an increase of their numbers, self-elected.
Out of this college of Decuriones the _Magistratus_ or supreme executive
government proceeded. In the better days I believe these were always
freely chosen for one year, by the whole community, but exclusively from
among the members of the Ordo: and after Tiberius at Rome transferred
the elections from the Comitia to the Senate, the Decuriones in the
provinces may have become the sole electors, as they were the only
persons capable of being elected. The Magistratus had the supreme
jurisdiction, and were the completion of the communal system: they bore
different names in different cities, but usually those of Duumviri or
Quatuorviri, from their number. Sometimes, but very rarely, they were
named Consules. In fact the general outline of this constitution
resembled as much as possible that of Rome itself, which was only the
head of a confederation embracing all the cities of Italy.
-----
Footnote 766:
If we adopt an old legal phrase, the Decuriones were _cives optimo
iure_, or full burghers; the rest of the citizens were _non optimo
iure_, not full burghers, not having a share in the advantages
possessed by the members of the corporation.
-----
A somewhat similar arrangement was introduced into the cities of the
various countries which, under the name of provinces, were brought
within the influence of the Roman power: only that in these the communal
organization was throughout subordinated to the regulation and control
of the Consularis, the Legatus, Procurator, and other officers military
and fiscal, who administered the affairs of the province. A principal
point of distinction between the free communities of Italy and the
dependent provincial corporations lay in this: that in the latter, the
magistrates were indeed elected by the Ordo or Curia, but upon the
nomination of the Roman governor: their jurisdiction in suits was
consequently very limited, while political functions were for the most
part confined to the civil and military officers of the empire.
As long as the condition of the imperial city itself was tolerably easy,
and the provinces had not yet been flooded with the vice, corruption and
misery which called for and rendered possible the victories of the
barbarians, the condition of the provincial decurions was on the whole
one of honour and advantage. They formed a kind of nobility, a class
distinguished from their fellow-citizens by a certain rank and
privileges, as they were assuredly also distinguished from them by
superior wealth: they resembled in fact an aristocracy of county
families at this day, with its exclusive possession of the magistrature
and other local advantages. On the other hand they were responsible for
the public dues, the levies, the annona or victualling of forces, the
_tributum_ or raising of the assessed taxes; and thus they were rendered
immediately subject to the exactions of the fiscal authorities, and
especially exposed to the caprice and illegal demands of the Roman
officials[767]—a class universally infamous for tyrannical extortion in
the provinces: and in yet later times, when the land itself frequently
became deserted, through the burthen of taxation and exaction[768], they
were compelled to undertake the cultivation of the relinquished estates,
that the fiscus might be no loser. Gradually as the bond which held the
fragments of the empire together was loosened, and as limb after limb
dropped away from the mouldering colossus, the condition of a Decurion
became so oppressive that it was found necessary to press citizens by
force into the office: some committed suicide, others expatriated
themselves, in order to escape it. The state was obliged to forbid by
law the sale of property for the purpose of avoiding it; freemen went
into the ranks, or subjected themselves to voluntary servitude, as a
preferable alternative; nay at length vagabonds, people of bad
character, even malefactors, were literally condemned to it[769]. This
tends perhaps more than any fact to prove the gradual ruin of the
municipal as well as the social fabric, and the miserable condition of
the provinces under the later emperors.
-----
Footnote 767:
Tacitus gives us an insight into some of the gratuitous insults and
vexations inflicted upon the British provincials, while he describes
the reforms introduced by Agricola into these branches of the public
service. “Ceterum animorum provinciae prudens, simulque doctus per
aliena experimenta, parum profici armis, si iniuriae sequerentur,
causas bellorum statuit excidere.... Frumenti et tributorum exactionem
aequalitate munerum mollire, circumcisis, quae in quaestum reperta,
ipso tributo gravius tolerabantur: namque per ludibrium adsidere
clausis horreis, et emere ultro frumenta, ac vendere pretio
cogebantur: devortia itinerum et longinquitas regionum indicebatur, ut
civitates a proximis hybernis in remota et avia deferrent, donec, quod
omnibus in promtu erat, paucis lucrosum fieret.” Tac. Agric. xix. The
same grave historian attributes the fierce insurrection under Boadicea
to the tyrannous conduct of the Legati and Procuratores of the
province, and the insolent conduct of their subordinates. “Britanni
agitare inter se mala servitutis, conferre iniurias et interpretando
accendere: ‘nihil profici patientia, nisi ut graviora, tanquam ex
facili tolerantibus, imperentur: singulos sibi olim reges fuisse, nunc
binos imponi: e quibus Legatus in sanguinem, Procurator in bona
saeviret. Aeque discordiam Praepositorum, aeque concordiam subiectis
exitiosam, alterius manus, centuriones alterius, vim et contumelias
miscere. Nihil iam cupiditati, nihil libidini exceptum.” Tac. Agric.
xv. It is obviously with reference to the same facts that he describes
the Britons as peaceable and well disposed to discharge the duties
laid upon them, if they are only spared insult. Tac. Agric. xiii.
Xiphilinus, who though a late writer is valuable inasmuch as he
represents Dio Cassius, describes some of the intolerable atrocities
which drove the Iceni into rebellion, destroyed Camelodunum and
Verulamium, and led in those cities and in London to the slaughter of
nearly seventy thousand citizens and allies. Deep as was the wrong
done to the family of Prasutagus, he is no doubt right in attributing
the general exasperation mainly to the confiscation of the lands which
Claudius Caesar had granted to the chiefs, and which the procurator
Catus Decianus attempted to call in. Πρόφασις δὲ τοῦ πολέμου ἑγένετο ἡ
δήμευσις τῶν χρημάτων (publicatio bonorum), ἅ Κλαύδιος τοῖς πρώτοις
αὐτῶν ἐδεδώκει· καὶ ἔδει καὶ ἐκεῖνα, ὥς γε Δεκιανὸς Κάτος ὁ τῆς νήσου
ἐπιτροπεύων ἔλεγεν, ἀναπόμπιμα γενέσθαι. Boadicea is made to declare
that they were charged with a poll-tax, so severely exacted that an
account was required even of the dead: οὐδὲ γὰρ τὸ τελευτῆσαι παρ’
αὐτοῖς ἀζήμιόν ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ ἴστε ὅσον καὶ ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν τελεοῦμεν·
παρὰ μὲν γὰρ τοῖς ἄλλοις ανθρώποις καὶ τοὺς δουλεύοντας τισιν ὁ
θάνατος ἐλευθεροῖ, Ῥωμαίοις δὲ δὴ μόνοις καὶ οἱ νεκροὶ ζῶσι πρὸς τὰ
λήμματα. These accusations put into the mouths of the personages
themselves, must not be taken to be exaggerated statements without
foundation: they are the confessions of the historians, which
sometimes perhaps they lacked courage to make in another form. The
sudden and violent calling in of large sums which Seneca had forced
upon the British chiefs in expectation of enormous interest, was
another cause of the war: διά τε οὖν τοῦτο, καὶ ὅτι ὁ Σενέκας χιλίας
σφίσι μυριάδας ἄκουσιν ἐπὶ χρησταῖς ἐλπίσι τόκων δανείσας, ἔπειτ’
ἀθρόας τε ἅμα αὐτὰς καὶ βιαίως εἰσέπρασσεν. The Roman mortgages in
Britain were enormous, yet easily explained. The procurator made an
extravagant demand: the native state could not pay it; but the
procurator had a Roman friend who would advance it upon good security,
etc. Similar things have taken place in _Zemindaries_ of later date
than the British. For the references above see Joan. Xiphil. Epitome
Dionis, _Nero_ vi.
Footnote 768:
This not only appears from the digests, but from numerous merely
incidental notices in the authors of the time. The population were
crowded into cities, and the country was deserted. This was not the
result of a healthy manufacturing or commercial movement, but of a
state of universal distraction and insecurity. Had the cultivation of
the land ceased through a prudent calculation of political economy, we
should not have heard of compulsory tillage.
Footnote 769:
Savigny, Röm. Recht. i. 23 _seq._
-----
However, in the better days of Vespasian, Trajan and the Antonines we
are not to look for such a state of society; and in the provinces, the
Ordo, though exposed to many harsh and painful conditions, yet held a
position of comparative dignity and influence. I have compared them to a
county aristocracy, but there is perhaps a nearer parallel, for in the
Roman empire it is difficult to distinguish the county from the town.
The position of the Decurions can hardly be made clearer than by a
reference to the Select (that is self-elected) Vestries of our great
metropolitan parishes before the passing of Sir John Hobhouse’s Acts; or
to the town-councillors and aldermen of our country-towns, before the
enactment of the Municipal Corporations’ Bill. Whoso remembers these
bodies with their churchwardens on the one hand, their mayors,
borough-reeves and aldermen on the other,—their exclusive jurisdiction
as a magistracy,—their exclusive possession of corporation property,
tolls, rents and other sources of wealth,—their private rights in the
common land, held by themselves or delegated to their _clients_,—their
custody of the public buildings, and sole management of civic or
charitable funds,—their patronage as trustees of public
institutions,—their franchise as electors,—their close family alliances,
and the methods by which they contrived to recruit their diminished
numbers, till they became a very aristocracy among a people of
commoners[770],—whoso, I say, considers these phænomena of our own day,
need have little difficulty not only in understanding the condition of a
Decurion in the better days of the Roman empire: but, if he will cast
his thought back into earlier ages, he may find in them no little
illustration of the nature, rights and policy of the Patriciate, under
the Republic.
-----
Footnote 770:
Cives optimo iure, optimates, senatus, patricii, rachinburgi, boni
homines,—these are all more or less equivalent terms.
-----
Other cities of a less favoured description were governed directly as
præfectures, by an officer sent from Rome, who centred in himself all
the higher branches of administration: in these cities the functions of
the Ordo were greatly curtailed; little was left them but to attend to
the police of the town and markets, the determination of trifling civil
suits, the survey of roads or buildings; and, in conjunction with the
heads of the guilds (“collegia opificum”) the vain and mischievous
attempt to regulate wages and prices. On the other hand a few cities had
what was called the Jus Italicum, or right to form a free corporation,
in every respect identical with those of the cities of Italy, that is to
say identical in plan with that of Rome itself. The provinces of the
Roman empire must have contained many of these privileged states which
thus enjoyed a valuable pre-eminence over their neighbours, the reward
of public services: but history has been sparing of their names, and in
western Europe, three only, Cologne, Vienne and Lyons are particularly
mentioned[771]. In all the cities which had not this privilege, after
the close of the fourth century we find a particular officer called the
Defensor, who was not to be one of the curiales, who was to be elected
by the whole body of the citizens and not by the curiales only, and who
must therefore be looked upon in a great degree as the representative of
the popular against the aristocratic element, as the support of the
Cives against the Senatus and Duumvir. In the cities of Gaul, the
bishops for the most part occupied this position, which necessarily led
to results of the highest importance, from the peculiar relation in
which it placed them to the barbarian invaders[772]. From all these
details it appears that very different measures of municipal freedom
were granted under different circumstances.
-----
Footnote 771:
Savigny, Röm. Recht. i. 53.
Footnote 772:
The Bishops were the most valuable allies of Clovis in his aggressive
wars. Without their co-operation that savage Merwing would perhaps
never have established the Frankish pre-eminence in the Gauls.
-----
We have considered the general principles of Roman provincial
government, and we now ask, how were these applied in the case of
Britain? The answer is much more difficult to give than might be
imagined. Wealthy as this country was, and capable of conducing to the
power and well-being of its masters, it seems never to have received a
generous, or even fair treatment from them. The Briton was to the last,
as at the first, “penitus toto divisus orbe Britannus,” and his land,
always “ultima Thule,” was made indeed to serve the avarice or ambition
of the ruler, but derived little benefit to itself from the rule.
“Levies, Corn, Tribute, Mortgages, Slaves”—under these heads was Britain
entered in the vast _ledger_ of the Empire. The Roman records do not
tell us much of the details of government here, and we may justly say
that we are more familiar with the state of an eastern or an Iberian
city than we are with that of a British one. A few technical words,
perfectly significant to a people who, above all others, symbolized a
long succession of facts under one legal term, are all that remain to
us; and unfortunately the jurists and statesmen and historians whose
works we painfully consult in hopes of rescuing the minutest detail of
our early condition, are satisfied with the use of general terms which
were perfectly intelligible to those for whom they wrote, but teach us
little. “Ostorius Scapula reduced the hither Britain to the form of a
province[773],”—conveyed ample information to those who took the
institutions of the Empire for granted wherever its eagles flew abroad:
to us they are nearly vain words, a detailed explanation of which would
be valuable beyond all calculation, for it would contain the secret of
the weakness and the sudden collapse of the Empire. But what little we
can gather from ancient sources does not induce us to believe that
Britain met with a just or enlightened measure of treatment at the hands
of her victors. Violence on the one hand, seduction on the other, were
employed to destroy the spirit of resistance, but we do not learn that
submission and docility were rewarded by the communication of a fair
share of those advantages which spring from peace and cultivation.
Agricola, whose information his severe and accomplished son-in-law must
be considered to reproduce, tells us that, on the whole, the Britons
were not difficult subjects to rule, as long as they were not insulted
by a capricious display of power: “The Britons themselves are not
backward in raising the levies and taxes, or filling the offices[774],
if they are only not exposed to insult in doing it. Insult they will not
submit to; for we have beaten them into obedience, but by no means yet
into slavery.” In this peaceable disposition Agricola saw the readiest
means of producing a complete and radical subjection to Rome; and on
this basis he formed his plan of rendering resistance powerless. He
entirely relinquished the forcible method of his predecessors and
applied himself to break down the national spirit by the spreading of
foreign arts and luxuries among the people; judging rightly that the
seductive allurements of ease and cultivation would ere long prove more
efficient and less costly instruments than the constant and dangerous
exercise of military coercion. “Those who did not deeply sound the
purposes of men, called this civilization; but it was part and parcel of
slavery itself[775].” Temples there were, fora, porticoes, baths and
luxurious feasts, Roman manners and Roman vices, and to support them
loans, usurious mortgages and ruin. But we seek in vain for any evidence
of the Romanized Britons having been employed in any offices of trust or
dignity, or permitted to share in the really valuable results of
civilization: there is no one Briton recorded of whom we can confidently
assert that he held any position of dignity and power under the imperial
rule: the historians, the geographers, nay even the novelists (who so
often supply incidental notices of the utmost interest), are here
consulted in vain; nor in the many inscriptions which we possess
relating to Britain, can we point out one single British name. The
caution of Augustus and Tiberius had from the first detected the
difficulties which would attend the maintenance of the Roman authority
in Britain: the feeling at home was, that it would be much more
profitable to raise a small revenue in Gaul upon the British exports and
imports, than to attempt to draw tribute from the island, which would
require a considerable military force for its collection[776]. During
their administration therefore the island was left undisturbed; and even
after Claudius had relinquished this wise moderation, and engaged the
Roman arms in a career of unceasing struggles, Nero felt anxious to
abandon a conquest which promised little to the state and could only be
maintained by the most exhausting efforts. That this reasonable object
was defeated in part by the vanity of the Romans themselves is
probable[777]: but a more cogent reason is to be found in the interests
of the noble usurers, of which we have seen so striking an example in
the philosophical Seneca. Against such motives even the moderation and
justice of an Agricola could avail but little: and after his recall and
disgrace by Domitian, it is easy to imagine that the Roman officials
here would not be too anxious by their good government to attain a
dangerous popularity. Selfish and thoroughly unprincipled as the Roman
government was in all its dependencies, it is little to be thought that
it would manifest any unusual tenderness in this distant, unprofitable
and little known possession: and I think we cannot entertain the least
doubt that the condition of the British aborigines was from the first
one of oppression, and was to the very last a mere downward progress
from misery to misery. But such a system as this—ruinous to the
conquered, and beneficial even to the conquerors only as long as they
could maintain the law of force—had no inherent vitality. It rested upon
a crime,—a sin which in no time or region has the providence of the
Almighty blessed,—the degradation of one class on pretext of benefiting
another. And as the sin, so was also the retribution. The Empire itself
might have endured here, had the Romans taught the Britons to be men,
and reconstituted a vigorous state upon that basis, in the hour of ruin,
when province after province was torn away from the city, and the curse
of an irresponsible will in feeble hands was felt through every quarter
of the convulsed and distracted body. But the Britons had been taught
the arts and luxuries of cultivation that they might be enervated.
Disarmed, except when a jealous policy called for levies to be drafted
into distant armies,—congregated into cities on the Roman plan, that
they might forget the dangerous freedom of their forests,—attracted to
share and emulate the feasts of the victors, that they might learn to
abhor the hard but noble fare of a squalid liberty,—supported and
encouraged in internal war, that union might not bring strength, and
that the Roman slave-dealer might not lack the objects of his detestable
traffic,—how should they develop the manly qualities on which the
greatness of a nation rests? How should they be capable of independent
being, who had only been trained as instruments for the ambition, or
victims to the avarice, of others? To crown all, their beautiful
daughters might serve to amuse the softer hours of their lordly masters;
but there was to be no _connubium_, and thus a half-caste race
inevitably arose among them, growing up with all the vices of the
victors, all the disqualifications of the vanquished. Nor under such
circumstances can population follow a healthy course of development, and
a hardy race be produced to recruit the power and increase the resources
of the state. No price is indeed too great to pay for civilization,—the
root of all individual and national power; but mere cultivation may
easily be purchased far too dearly. It is not worth its cost if it is
obtained only by the sacrifice of all that makes life itself of value.
-----
Footnote 773:
“Consularium primus Aulus Plautius praepositus, ac subinde Ostorius
Scapula, uterque bello egregius: redactaque paulatim in formam
provinciae proxima pars Britanniae.” Tac. Agric. xiv.
Footnote 774:
Agric. xiii. Offices under the Empire were _honores_ or _munera_: the
former, places of dignity and some power, duumvirates and the like:
the latter, places of much labour and great responsibility, coupled
with but little distinction. The condition of a decurion already
described will give some notion of a _munus_; and it is a painful
thing to find Tacitus implying that the _munera_ were troublesome and
repulsive offices at so early a period; for this is clearly his
meaning: he evidently intends to compliment the Keltic population on a
disposition to behave well, if their Roman task-masters will only be
content not to add insult to injury. The case would be nearly parallel
if we made Heki a petty constable, and then held him responsible when
a New-Zealand outlaw stole a sheep or burnt out a missionary.
Footnote 775:
“Sequens hyems saluberrimis consiliis absumpta: namque, ut homines
dispersi ac rudes, eoque in bella faciles, quieti et otio per
voluptates adsuescerent, hortari privatim, adiuvare publice, ut
templa, fora, domus exstruerent, laudando promtos et castigando
segnes: ita honoris aemulatio pro necessitate erat. Iam vero principum
filios liberalibus artibus erudire, et ingenia Britannorum studiis
Gallorum anteferre, ut qui modo linguam Romanam abnuebant, eloquentiam
concupiscerent. Inde etiam habitus nostri honor et frequens toga:
paullatimque discessum ad delinimenta vitiorum, porticus et balnea et
conviviorum elegantiam: idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum
pars servitutis esset.” Tac. Agric. xxi. “Quaedam civitates Cogidumno
regi donatae ... vetere ac iam pridem recepta populi Romani
consuetudine, ut haberet instrumenta servitutis et reges.” Agric. xiv.
Footnote 776:
Strabo calculated it at not less than one legion, the cost of which
establishment could hardly fail to swallow up all the profit. Νυνὶ
μέντοι τῶν δυναστῶν τινες τῶν αὐτόθι, πρεσβεύσεσι καὶ θεραπείαις
κατασκευασάμενοι τὴν πρὸς Καίσαρα τὸν Σεβαστὸν Φιλίαν, ἀναθήματα τε
ἀνέθηκαν ἐν τῷ Καπετωλίῷ, καὶ οἰκείαν σχεδόν τι παρεσκεύασαν τοῖς
Ῥωμαίοις ὅλην τὴν νῆσον· τέλη τε οὔπως ὑπομένουσι βαρέα τῶν τε
εἰσαγομένων εἰς τὴν Κελτικὴν ἐκεῖθεν καὶ τῶν ἐξαγομένων ἐνθένδε (ταῦτα
δ’ ἐστὶν ἐλεφάντινα ψάλια, καὶ περιαυχένια, καὶ λυγγούρια, καὶ ὑαλᾶ
σκεύη, καὶ ἄλλος ῥῶπος τοιοῦτος) ὥστε μηδὲν δεῖν φροιρᾶς τῆς νήσου·
τοὐλάχιστον μὲν γὰρ ἑνὸς τάγματος χρήζοι ἂν καὶ ἱππικοῦ τινος, ὥστε
καὶ φόρους ἀπάγεσθαι παρ’ αὐτῶν· εἰς ἴσον δὲ καθίστατο πᾶν τὸ ἀνάλωμα
τῆ στρατιᾷ τοῖς προσφερομένοις χρήμασιν· ἀνάγκη γὰρ μειοῦσθαι τὰ τέλη
φόρων ἐπιβαλλομένων, ἅμα δὲ καὶ κινδύνους ἀπαντᾶν τινας, βιὰς
ἐπαγομένης. Geogr. lib. iv. cap. 5, § 3.
Footnote 777:
“Augendi propagandique imperii neque voluntate ulla neque spe motus
unquam, etiam ex Britannia deducere exercitum cogitavit: nec nisi
verecundia, ne obtrectare parentis gloriae videretur, destitit.”
Sueton. vi. 18.
-----
Such, upon the severest and most impartial examination of the facts
which we possess, seems to me to have been the condition of the British
population under the Romans. No otherwise can we even plausibly account
for the instantaneous collapse of the imperial authority: it fell, with
one vast and sudden ruin, the moment the artificial supports upon which
it relied, were removed. Had Britain not been utterly exhausted by
mal-administration, had there remained men to form a reserve, and
resources to victual an army, the last commander who received the
mandate of recall, would probably have thrown off his allegiance, and
proclaimed himself a competitor for empire. Many tried the perilous
game; all lost it, because the country was incapable of furnishing the
means to maintain a contest: and in the meanwhile, the Saxons proceeded
to settle the question in their own way. As such a state of society
supplied no materials for the support of the Roman power, so it
furnished no elements of self-subsistence when that power was removed;
when that hour at length arrived, the possibility of which the
overweening confidence in the fortune of the city had never condescended
to contemplate. Before the eyes of all the nations, and amidst the ruins
of a world falling to pieces in confusion, was this awful lesson written
in gigantic characters by the hand of God—that authority which rules
ill, which rules for its own selfish ends alone, is smitten with
weakness, and shall not endure. It was then that a long-delayed, but not
the less awful retribution burst at last upon the enfeebled empire. Goth
and Vandal, Frank and Sueve and Saxon lacerated its defenceless
frontiers; the terrible Attila—the Scourge of God—ravaged with impunity
its fairest provinces; the eternal city itself twice owed its safety to
the superstition or the contemptuous mercy of the barbarians whose
forefathers had trembled at its name even in the depths of their forest
fastnesses; the legions, unable to maintain themselves, and called—but
called in vain—to defend a state perishing by its own corruptions, left
Britain exposed to the attack of fierce and barbarous enemies that
thronged on every side. Without arms and discipline, and what is far
more valuable than these, the spirit of self-reliance and faith in the
national existence, the Britons perished as they stood: bowing to the
inevitable fate, they passed only from one class of task-masters to
another, and slowly mingled with the masses of the new conquerors, or
fell in ill-conducted and hopeless resistance to their progress.
The Keltic laws and monuments themselves supply conclusive evidence of
the justice of these general observations. Throughout all the ages
during which these populations were in immediate contact with Rome, not
a single ray of Keltic nationality is able to penetrate. It is only
among the mountains of the Cymri, a savage race, as little subjugated by
the Romans, as even to this moment by ourselves, that a trace of that
nationality is to be found. There indeed, guarded by fortresses which
nature itself made impregnable, the heartblood of Keltic society was
allowed to beat; and the barbarians whom policy affected or luxury could
afford to despise, grew up in an independence, features of which we can
still recognize in their legal and poetical remains. The pride of the
invaders might be soothed by the erection of a few castra, or praesidia
or castella in the Welsh marches; the itinerary of an emperor might
finish in a commercial city on the Atlantic; but in Wales the Romans had
hardly a foot of ground which they did not overshadow with the lines of
their fortresses; and to the least instructed eye, the chain of
fortified posts which guard every foot of ground to the east of the
Severn tells of a contemplated retreat and defence upon the base of that
strong line of entrenchments.
And yet how insufficient are the laws and triads of the Cymri in point
of mere antiquity! Let us do all honour to the praiseworthy burst of
Keltic patriotism which has revived in our day: let us even concede that
some few of the triads may carry us back to the sixth century: yet the
earliest Cymric laws of which the slightest trace can be discovered, are
those of Hywel in the tenth. And even, if with a courteous desire to do
justice to the subject, we admit the historical existence of the
fabulous Dynwall and fabulous Marcia[778], who has even insinuated that
a single sentence of their codes survive; or that, if even if such
existed, they had currency a single foot to the eastward of the Severn?
Who can imagine that such laws ever had authority beyond the boundaries
of a solitary sept, more fortunate than the rest, inasmuch as its record
has not, like those of others, perished?
-----
Footnote 778:
We may leave those, if any such there be, who still think Geoffrey of
Monmouth an authority, to cite his proofs that Dynwall Moelmwd
flourished four centuries before Christ; and that the Mercian laws of
Offa, quoted by Ælfred, were those of the British, princess Marcia.
-----
More directly to the purpose is the information we derive from Gildas,
whose patriotism is beyond suspicion, and whose antiquity gives his
assertions some claim to our respect[779]. He tells us that on the final
departure of the Romans, including the _armatus miles_, _militaires
copiae_, and _rectores immanes_ (by which last words he may possibly
intend the civil officers called _rectores provinciarum_), Britain was
_omnis belli usu penitus ignara_, utterly ignorant of the practice of
war[780]: the island was consequently soon overrun by predatory bands of
Picts and Scots whose ravages reduced the inhabitants to the extremest
degree of misery: and these incursions were followed at no great
interval of time by so violent a pestilence that the living were hardly
numerous enough to bury the dead[781]. Then having briefly noticed the
savage invasion of the Saxons, and a defeat which he says they sustained
at Bath, and which is supposed to have been given them by Arthur in the
year 520, he thus continues: “But not even now, as before, are the
cities of my country inhabited; deserted and destroyed, they lie
neglected even unto this day: for civil wars continue, though foreign
wars have ceased[782].” We can easily imagine that a nation in anything
like the state which Gildas describes, might suffer severely from the
brigandage of banditti in the interior; and on the frontier, from raids
and forays of the Picts and Scots. Attacks which even the disciplined
soldiery of Rome found it necessary to bridle by means of such
structures as the walls of Hadrian, Antonine and Severus, must have had
terror enough for a disarmed and disheartened population; nor is it in
the least degree improbable that the universal disorder, the withdrawal
of the legions and some new immigration of Teutonic adventurers set in
motion populations, which in various parts of the country had hitherto
rested quietly under the nominal control of the Roman arms. But still it
is not without surprise that we notice the absence of all evidence that
the Britons even attempted to maintain the cities the Romans had left
them, or to make a vigorous defence behind their solid fortifications,
inexpugnable one would think by rude undisciplined assailants. It is
true, we are told that in half a century England had gone entirely out
of cultivation, and that the land had again become covered with forests
which alone supplied food for the inhabitants[783]: but if this were
really the case—and it is not entirely improbable—it can only have had
the effect of driving the population into the cities. That these were to
a great extent still standing in the fifth century is certain, since
Gildas, in the sixth, represents them as deserted and decaying; that the
Saxons found them yet entire is obvious; in the tenth and twelfth
centuries their ancient grandeur attracted the attention of observant
historians[784]; and even yet their remains testify to the astonishing
skill and foresight of their builders. I cannot therefore but believe
that Britain really was, as described, disarmed and disheartened, and
most probably so depopulated as to be incapable of any serious defence:
a condition which throws a hideous light upon the nature of the Roman
rule and the practices of Roman civilized life.
-----
Footnote 779:
Gildas probably wrote within two centuries of the time when the Romans
left Britain. Two hundred years it is true offer a large margin for
imagination, especially when it is Keltic, and employed about national
history: but Gildas’s report, credible in itself, is confirmed by
other evidence.
Footnote 780:
Gild. Hist. xiv.
Footnote 781:
Ibid. xxii.
Footnote 782:
Gild. Hist. xxvi. Foreign wars, those of the Britons and Saxons;—Civil
wars, those of the Britons among themselves; perhaps those of the
Saxon kings.
Footnote 783:
“Nam laniant seipsos mutuo, nec pro exigui victus brevi sustentaculo
miserrimorum civium latrocinando temperabant: et augebantur extraneae
clades domesticis motibus, quo et huiusmodi crebris direptionibus
vacuaretur omnis regio totius cibi baculo, excepto venatoriae artis
solatio.” Gild. xix. Half a century in an unexhausted soil is ample
time to convert the most nourishing district into thick brushwood and
impervious _bush_. Beech and fir, which, though said by Strabo to be
not indigenous, must have been plentiful in the fifth century, do not
require fifty years to become large trees: the elm, alder and even oak
are well-sized growths at that age. Even thorn, maple and bramble with
such a course before them are very capable of making an imposing
wilderness of underwood.
Footnote 784:
Æðelweard says of the Romans: “Urbes etiam atque castella, necnon
pontes plateasque mirabili ingenio condiderunt, quae usque in
hodiernam diem videntur.” Chron. lib. i. And William of Malmesbury
argues how greatly the Romans valued Britain from the vast remains of
their buildings extant when he wrote. “Romani Britanniam ... magna
dignatione coluere; ut et in annalibus legere, et in veterum
aedificiorum vestigiis est videre.” Gest. Reg. lib. i. cp. 1. The
following is his account of the state in which the island was left:
“Ita cum tyranni nullum in agris praeter semibarbaros, nullum in
urbibus praeter ventri deditos reliquissent, Britannia omni patrocinio
iuvenilis vigoris viduata, omni exercitio artium exinanita,
conterminarum gentium inhiationi diu obnoxia fuit. Siquidem, e
vestigio, Scottorum et Pictorum incursione multi mortales caesi,
villae succensae, urbes sub-rutae, prorsus omnia ferro incendioque
vastata; turbati insulani, qui omnia tutiora putarent quam praelio
decernere, partim pedibus salutem quaerentes fuga in montana
contendunt, partim sepultis thesauris, quorum plerique in hac aetate
defodiuntur, Romam ad petendas suppetias intendunt.” Gest. Reg. lib.
i. cap. 2, 3. But Rome had then enough to do to defend herself, for
those were the days of Alaric and Attila. The emptying the island of
all the fighting men by Maximus is a very ancient fiction. Archbishop
Usher makes him carry over to the continent thirty thousand soldiers,
and one hundred thousand _plebeii_, which have settled in Armorica.
Antiq. Eccles. Brittan. pp. 107, 108. We may admit the number of the
soldiery; the Roman force, with the levies, probably amounted to as
many. But who were the _plebeii_? Beda gives a similar account of the
condition of Britain: “Exin Brittania, _in parte_ Brittonum, omni
armato milite, militaribus copiis universis, tota floridae iuventutis
alacritate, spoliata, quae tyrannorum temeritate abducta nusquam ultra
domum rediit, praedae tantum patuit, utpote omnis bellici usus prorsus
ignara.” Hist. Eccl. i. 12. cf. Gild. xiv.
-----
It is highly improbable that any large number of the Roman towns
perished during the harassing period within which the Pictish invasions
fall, at all events by violent means. The marauding forays of such
barbarians are not accompanied with battering trains or supported by the
skilful combinations of an experienced commissariat: wandering banditti
have neither the means to destroy such masonry as the Romans erected,
the time to execute, nor in general the motive to form such plans of
subversion. One or two cities may possibly have fallen under the furious
storm of the Saxons, and Anderida is recorded to have done so: more than
this seems to me unlikely: Keltic populations have generally been found
capable of making a very good defence behind walls, in spite of the
ridiculous accounts which Gildas gives of their ineffectual resistance
to the Picts[785]. The Roman cities perished, it is true, but by a far
slower and surer process than that of violent disruption; they crumbled
away under the hand of time, the ruinous consequences of neglect, and
the operation of natural causes, which science finds no difficulty in
assigning. We may believe that the gradual impoverishment of the land
had driven the population to crowd into cities, even before the retreat
of the legions; and that the troublous era of the tyrants[786]
completely emptied the country into the towns. But even if we suppose
that citizens remained and, what is rather an extravagant supposition,
that they remained undisturbed in their old seats, we shall find that
there are obvious reasons why they could not maintain themselves
therein. There are conditions necessary to the very existence of towns,
and without which it is impossible that they should continue to endure.
They must have town-lands, and they must have manufactures and trade: in
other words they must either grow bread or buy it: but to this end they
must have the means of safe and ready communication with country
districts, or with other towns which have this. It matters not whether
that communication be by the sea, as in the case of Tyre and
Carthage[787]; over the desert, as at Bagdad and Aleppo; down the river
or canal, along the turnpike road, or yet more compendious railway: easy
and safe communication is the condition _sine qua non_, of urban
existence.
-----
Footnote 785:
According to him, the Britons suffered the Picts to pull them off the
wall with long-hooks. “Statuitur ad haec in edito arcis acies, segnis
ad pugnam, inhabilis ad fugam, trementibus praecordiis inepta, quae
diebus ac noctibus stupido sedili marcebat. Interea non cessant
uncinata nudorum tela, quibus miserrimi cives de muris tracti solo
allidebantur.” Gild. xix. Beda copies this statement almost verbatim.
Hist. Eccl. i. 12.
Footnote 786:
Britain was at last, even as at first, _fertilis tyrannorum_: and in
the agony which preceded her dissolution more so than ever. Aurelius
Ambrosius, if a Briton at all, is said to have been born of parents
_purpura induti_: and this is possible at a period when it was unknown
to contemporary writers whether a partizan were _imperator_ or only
_latrunculus_. But I suspect that there were not many Britons of rank,
or importance in any way, in the fifth century, in those parts of the
island where the Romans held sway.
Footnote 787:
Athens, though shut up within her walls, felt little inconvenience
from the loss of her corn-fields and vegetable gardens, while her
fleet still swept the Ægean. She fell only when she lost the dominion
of the sea, and with it the means of feeding her population.
-----
Let us apply these principles to the case before us. Even supposing that
Gildas and other authors have greatly exaggerated the state of rudeness
into which the country had fallen, yet we may be certain that one of the
very first results of a general panic would be the obstruction of the
ancient roads and established modes of communication. It is certain that
this would be followed at first by a considerable desertion of the
towns; since every one would anxiously strive to secure that by which he
could feed himself and his family; in preference to continuing in a
place which no longer offered any advantages beyond those of temporary
defence and shelter. The retirement of the Romans, emigration of wealthy
aborigines, general discomfort and disorganization of the social
condition, and ever imminent terror of invasion, must soon have put a
stop to those commercial and manufacturing pursuits which are the
foundation of towns and livelihood of townspeople. Internal wars and
merciless factions which ever haunt the closing evening of states,
increased the misery of their condition; and a frightful pestilence, by
Gildas attributed to the superfluity of luxuries, but which may far more
probably be accounted for by the want of food, completed the universal
ruin.
Still even those who fled for refuge to the land, could find little
opportunity of improving their situation: there was no room for them in
an island which was thenceforward to be organized upon the Teutonic
principles of association. The Saxons were an agricultural and pastoral
people: they required land for their alods,—forests, marshes and commons
for their cattle: they were not only dangerous rivals for the possession
of those estates which, lying near the cities, were probably in the
highest state of cultivation, but they had cut off all communication by
extending themselves over the tracts which lay between city and city.
But they required serfs also, and these might now be obtained in the
greatest abundance and with the greatest security, cooped up within
walls, and caught as it were in traps, where the only alternative was
slavery or starvation[788]. Nor can we reasonably imagine that such
spoils as could yet be wrested from the degenerate inhabitants were
despised by conquerors whose principle it was that wealth was to be won
at the spear’s point[789].
-----
Footnote 788:
“Sic enim et hic agente impio victore, immo disponente iusto iudice,
proximas quasque civitates agrosque depopulans, ab orientali mari
usque ad occidentale, nullo prohibente, suum continuavit incendium,
totamque prope insulae pereuntis superficiem obtexit. Ruebant
aedificia publica simul et privata, passim sacerdotes inter altaria
trucidabantur, praesules cum populis, sine ullo respectu honoris,
ferro pariter et flammis absumebantur; nec erat qui crudeliter
interemptos sepulturae traderet. Itaque nonnulli de miserandis
reliquiis, in montibus comprehensi acervatim iugulabantur; alii fame
confecti procedentes manus hostibus dabant, pro accipiendis
alimentorum subsidiis aeternum subituri servitium, si tamen non
continuo trucidarentur: ali transmarinas regiones dolentes petebant;
alii perstantes in patria pauperem vitam in montibus, silvis vel
rupibus arduis, suspecta semper mente, agebant.” Beda, Hist. Eccl. i.
15. See also Gildas, xxiv. xxv.
Footnote 789:
“Mit géru scal man geba infahan,” with the spear shall men win gifts.
Hiltibrants Lied.
-----
No doubt the final triumph of the Saxons was not obtained entirely
without a struggle: here and there attempts at resistance were made, but
never with such success as to place any considerable obstacle in the way
of the invaders. Spirit-broken, and reduced both in number and
condition, the islanders gradually yielded to the tempest; and with some
allowance for the rhetorical exaggeration of the historian, Britain did
present a picture such as Beda and Gildas have left. Stronghold after
stronghold fell, less no doubt by storm (which the Saxons were in
general not prepared to effect) than by blockade, or in consequence of
victories in the open field. The sack of Anderida by Aelli, and the
extermination of its inhabitants, is the only recorded instance of a
fortified city falling by violent breach, and in this case so complete
was the destruction that the ingenuity of modern enquirers has been
severely taxed to assign the ancient site. But when we are told[790]
that Cúðwulf, by defeating the Britons in 571 at Bedford, gained
possession of Leighton Buzzard, Aylesbury, Bensington and Ensham, I
understand it only of a wide tract of land in Bedfordshire,
Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire, which had previously been dependent
upon towns in those several districts[791], and which perished in
consequence. Again when we are told[792] that six years later Cúðwine
took Bath, and Cirencester and Gloucester, the statement seems to me
only to imply that he cleared the land from the confines of Oxfordshire
to the Severn and southward to the Avon, and so rendered it safely
habitable by his Teutonic comrades and allies. Thirty years later we
find Northumbria stretching westward till the fall of Cair Legion became
necessary: accordingly Æðelfrið took possession of Chester. Its present
condition is evidence enough that he did not level it with the ground,
or in any great degree injure its fortifications.
-----
Footnote 790:
Chron. Sax.
Footnote 791:
It seems difficult to take these statements _au pied de la lettre_.
How could Cúðwulf possibly have manœuvred such a force as he
commanded, so as to fight at Bedford, if, as we must suppose, he
marched from Hampshire or Surrey? How in fact could he ever reach
Bedford, leaving Aylesbury in his rear, Bensington and Ensham on his
left flank, if those places were capable of offering any kind of
resistance? If they were so, we must admit that the Britons richly
merited their overthrow.
Footnote 792:
Chron. Sax. an. 577.
-----
The fact has been already noticed that the Saxons did not themselves
adopt the Roman cities, and the reason for the course they pursued has
been given. They did not want them, and would have been greatly at a
loss to know what to do with them. The inhabitants they enslaved, or
expelled as a mere necessary precaution and preliminary to their own
peaceable occupation of the land: but they neither took possession of
the towns, nor did they give themselves the trouble to destroy
them[793]. They had not the motive, the means or perhaps the patience to
unbuild what we know to have been so solidly constructed. Where it
suited their purpose to save the old Roman work, they used it for their
own advantage: where it did not suit their views of convenience or
policy to establish themselves on or near the old sites, they quietly
left them to decay. There is not even a probability that they in general
took the trouble to dismantle walls or houses to assist in the
construction of their own rude dwellings[794]. Boards and rafters, much
more easily accessible, and to them much more serviceable, much more
easy of transport than stones and bond-tiles, they very likely removed:
the storms, the dews, the sunshine, the unperceived and gentle action of
the elements did the rest,—for desolation marches with giant strides,
and neglect is a more potent leveller than military engines. Clogged
watercourses undermined the strong foundations; decomposed stucco or the
detritus of stone and brick mingled in the deserted chambers with
drifted silt, and dust and leaves; accumulations of soil formed in and
around the crumbling abodes of wealth and power; winged seeds, borne on
the autumnal winds, sunk gently on a new and vigorous bed; vegetation
yearly thickening, yearly dying, prepared the genial deposit; roots
yearly matting deepened the crust; the very sites of cities vanished
from the memory as they had vanished from the eye; till at length the
plough went and the corn waved, as it now waves, over the remains of
palaces and temples in which the once proud masters of the world had
revelled and had worshipped. Who shall say in how many unsuspected
quarters yet, the peasant whistles careless and unchidden above the pomp
and luxury of imperial Rome!
-----
Footnote 793:
Müller, in his treatise on the Law of the Salic Franks, expresses the
opinion that the German conquerors always destroyed the cities which
they found. But the arguments which he adduces appear to me
insufficient in themselves, and to be refuted by the obvious facts of
the case. See his Der Lex Salica alter und Heimath, p. 160. The
passages in Tacitus (Germ. xvi.) and Ammianus (xvi. 2) only prove that
the Germans did not themselves like living in cities, which no one
disputes.
Footnote 794:
This was left for later and more civilized times; witness St. Alban’s
massive abbey, one of the largest buildings in England, constructed
almost entirely of bond-tiles from ancient Verulam. Caen stone would
probably have been easier got and cheaper: but labour-rents must never
be suffered to fall in arrear. It is the only rent which cannot be
fetched up. Old Verulam was first dismantled because Ealdred, a Saxon
abbot, in the tenth century found its cellars and ruined houses
offered an asylum to bad characters of either sex: so runs the story.
-----
Many circumstances combined to make a distinction between the cities of
Britain and those of the Gallic continent. The latter had always been in
nearer relation than our own to Rome: they had been at all periods
permitted to enjoy a much greater measure of municipal freedom, and were
enriched by a more extensive commercial intercourse. England had no city
to boast of so free as Lugdunum, none so wealthy as Massilia. Even in
the time of the Gallic independence they had been far more advanced in
cultivation than the cities of the Britons, and in later days their
organization was maintained by the residence of Roman bishops and a
wealthy body of clergy. Nor on the other hand do the Franks appear to
have been very numerous in proportion to the land, a sufficient amount
of which they could appropriate without very seriously confining the
urban populations: many of these still retained their communications
with the sea: and, lastly, before the conquerors, slowly advancing from
Belgium through Flanders, had spread themselves throughout the populous
and wealthy parts of Gaul, their chiefs had shown a readiness to listen
to the exhortation of Christian teachers, to enter into the communion of
the Church, and recognize its rights and laudable customs. So that in
general, whether among the Lombards in Italy, the Goths in Aquitaine, or
the Franks in Neustria, there was but little reason for a violent
subversion, or even gradual ruin, of the ancient cities. In these the
old subsisting elements of civilization were still tolerated, and
continued to prevail by the force of uninterrupted usage. More happy
than the demoralized and dispossessed inhabitants of Britain, the Roman
provincials under the Frankish and Langobardic rule were still numerous
and important enough to retain their own laws, and the most of their own
customs. Skilful in the character of counsellors or administrators,
wealthy and enterprising as merchant-adventurers, dignified and
influential as forming almost exclusively the class of the clergy, they
still retained their old seats, under the protection of the conquerors:
and thus, for the most part their cities survived the conquest, and
continued under their ancient character, till they slowly gave way at
length in the numerous civil or baronial wars of the middle ages, and
the frequent insurrections of the urban populations in their struggle
for communal liberties.